Rune Factory 3 Special has a release date on PC, invites you to fall in love with one of its hyperabundant bachelorettes

Sometimes I say that my tastes in games are too wide and strange to be condensed to a single genre or pithy phrase, but I take it all back. I just finished reading the newly-revealed Steam page for Rune Factory 3 Special, which invites players to "farm, fight, and fall in love," and I now realise those three things are all I've ever wanted from videogames or, indeed, life itself.

It's technically a surprise that Rune Factory 3 Special—a remaster of the 2009 Nintendo DS game Rune Factory 3: A Fantasy Harvest Moon—will release on PC. Up till today, Xseed has only discussed it as an upcoming release for the Nintendo Switch, but the publisher accompanied today's release date announcement with a link to wishlist the game on Steam, confirming a release on PC.

I say "technically" a surprise because we have Rune Factory 4 Special and Rune Factory 5 on PC already, and it'd be a weird swerve for Xseed to decide to arbitrarily withhold the third game's remaster from the platform. Regardless, it's good to get confirmation and a specific release date at the same time, and it's extra good to free any game from the shackles of aged console platforms.

If you aren't familiar with the Rune Factory games, they're a heady blend of farming, socialising, and more traditional action-RPG exploration, dungeon-crawling and questing. They're pretty popular, particularly in Japan, and while the third game isn't quite as beloved as Rune Factory 4, Xseed promises to spruce it up with "improved visuals" and new features like "newlywed mode," adventures that unlock after you tie the knot with one of the game's 11 eligible bachelorettes. Which is honestly too many. Bachelorette inflation is killing videogames.

If that appeals, then you can check out Rune Factory 3 Special when it releases on Steam on September 5 this year.

One of Josh's first memories is of playing Quake 2 on the family computer when he was much too young to be doing that, and he's been irreparably game-brained ever since. His writing has been featured in Vice, Fanbyte, and the Financial Times. He'll play pretty much anything, and has written far too much on everything from visual novels to Assassin's Creed. His most profound loves are for CRPGs, immersive sims, and any game whose ambition outstrips its budget. He thinks you're all far too mean about Deus Ex: Invisible War.